


With Friends Like These

by GhostFactory



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Found Family, Silly antics, Summer, Sylas acts like a dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24973399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostFactory/pseuds/GhostFactory
Summary: Hello again.I received the go-ahead to post my zine piece for Legends of the Rift 2!This is a collaboration project I did with my friend @RosyMiz (on Twitter), who did the lovely illustration of this story's ending. It is well worth your time to take a look at ; v ; they worked very hard, and I am touched to see one of my stories painted.Thank you once again to League of Writing and all of our zine staff. I'm very grateful to have been part of this project and beyond proud of the final version.A second thank you to all of my readers, who without, I would be nothing at all. I appreciate how patient and understanding every one of you has been in the comments, and I'll be replying to each soon.I am so happy to share this summer story with everyone, and I hope it puts a smile on your face even when it's been so hot outside.I hope you enjoy reading.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	With Friends Like These

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RosyMiz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosyMiz/gifts).



Though it was five in the morning and not a single soul had shown up to join his cause, Sylas of Dregbourne was still preparing what would soon be his rebellion’s first base camp.

The sky had just begun to lighten with the promise of an eventual sunrise, making it far easier for the mage to roll the massive log he had gripped between his hands. 

The grass was wet with morning dew, making the process of pushing the deadfall much less straining than it had been the first time he’d tried. After all, he only needed to finish moving this last one, then the table would be ready for any potential recruits to use.

Sylas stopped rolling the log to stand and stretch out his broad shoulders. Several loud pops sounded from his joints. His eyes were sore, and his body didn’t feel much better off, however, there was still clearly work to be done. 

He had been setting up the camp for three days straight, and even with being all on his own, the Unshackled had gotten a large amount of work done. Several cloth tents had been spread out around the clearing, all of them barren of furniture and bedding. 

At the center of the site was a decent sized fire, though the iron cookpot that hung over the flames had been unused since he had found it. Though he had been free for a month, the mage was still not very talented at cooking on his own. 

The true pride and joy of his labors was the crude table he had managed to construct from a ruined carriage and deadfall. 

While his creation was not a work of art by any means, the table was large and able to comfortably seat even the massive mage himself. Sylas was no woodworker, and the table was the first thing he had ever created with his own hands. Seeing the finished piece made his chest swell with pride every time he looked at it.

With an exhausted deep breath, the Unshackled pushed a loose strand of hair out of his eyes and returned to rolling the log. A few swears in Demacian escaped when a long splinter wedged itself into his palm. 

“Just get it done, then you can rest,” he hissed at himself between shoves, forcing the overworked muscles in his back and arms to continue their tireless pursuit. If he just finished this one last task, maybe then he would finally feel drained enough to rest. 

In a sleep-deprived hyper-focus, Sylas did not notice the three forms that approached on the blooming horizon. 

“Seriously? How is he struggling to move a LOG if he’s that BIG?” 

“Julian, gods above, could you use some damn manners for once!?” 

“He does have a point Luther.”

“Don’t encourage him! The man is obviously tired! I mean...just look at him.”

Sylas was oblivious to any of the third parties’ comments, puffing and swearing as the soggy wood slipped out from under his hands for a third time. He knew that with a few more strong shoves, the log would finally be close enough for someone to sit on, and the mage wasn’t about to quit until he had gotten it where he wanted it.

The mage heard several voices in the distance, but he paid no mind to them. Whatever it was could wait until he was finished. 

A sigh of relief left him when the log finally bumped against the table, signaling the end of his efforts for the day. The Unshackled straightened his back, trying to determine if those who approached him meant any harm. 

None of them appeared to be Seekers.

“--JULIAN!”

A cold stone fell into the pit of his stomach. 

Teenagers.

“Luther, is he staring at us? Why is he just staring at us?”

“Probably because you freaked him out!”

He didn’t have any experience in dealing with teenagers, and certainly not three of them at once.

“He’s Sylas of Dregbourne! He isn’t freaked out by anything!”

Sylas stared as they walked closer, their faces coming into focus at long last. Each of them carried a different glow about their person, alluding to the varying magic they possessed.

His first recruits. 

Before the Unshackled could convince himself that he would ruin any attempt at conversation, he stuck a cuffed hand high into the air and waved the strangers over, chain links clanking together loudly as he did so.  
“It’s him! Come on, hurry up you two!”

Sure enough, the three young mages picked up into a run, excited by his gesture of friendship. 

Sylas shifted nervously where he stood, fighting back the waves of anxiety that washed over him. He hadn’t spoken with anyone (besides her) in a very long time, which caused him to doubt in his ability to make--

“Hey! Slow down! He’s going to think you’re the fast one, and we both know that's not true!”

\--he supposed that ‘friends’ was the word he had been searching for, but something felt vaguely wrong about using that term in context towards himself. 

He had enemies for sure, but Sylas of Dregbourne didn’t have friends.

“You there big guy?”

A choked noise of embarrassment escaped Sylas as he noticed several eyes now looking up at him expectantly. 

“I am so sorry, you’ll have to excuse my younger brother here. Julian never knows when to keep his mouth shut,” the taller of the two boys apologized, punching the shortest in his shoulder when he finished. 

Sylas felt his mouth open, but nothing leaderly came to mind. He had no clue what to say in response.

“Oh shove it Luther! At least I’m good at talking to people, unlike Mira.” Julian retorted, his tone playful with the insult. 

The tallest of them appeared to be the Mira in question, but she remained dead silent.

“Well met,” he began, outstretching a mighty hand to shake Luther’s smaller one, “...I suppose you already know who I am?” 

The eldest brother beamed back at him with a look of pure adoration before shaking his hand, almost throwing Sylas off balance with the sudden vigor. 

“Of course we do! You’re Sylas of Dregbourne! The mage who escaped!” Luther assured him in an excited tone of voice.

“The Unshackled!” Julian confirmed, a fist jamming into the air above him in mock protest.

Mira only offered a half-smile, but something told him that this was a rare expression for the girl.

With an exhausted chuckle, Sylas scratched the back of his head, feeling a bit overwhelmed with the reverence the three mages harbored for him. He could feel his neck beginning to heat up as they waited for yet another response, unable to find the correct words to say. Right as he opened his mouth to speak, a quiet voice broke the awkward silence. 

“Have you slept since you broke free?”

The Unshackled felt his upper lip twitch as he was reminded how tired he really was. In truth, Sylas struggled with relaxing in general. 

“Ah, occasionally. There’s still a lot of work to be done around here,” he commented, noting that he was actually one tent short. 

Mira tilted her head back at Sylas’ response, azure eyes narrowing in regard to his dodgy answer. Realizing he was floundering through the conversation, Sylas spread his arms out wide in an attempt to redirect onto more important matters. 

“Fellow brothers and, --uh--, sister, please...make yourselves at home. Give me another hour and I can find something for you all to eat.” 

Sylas had no idea if he could even walk for an hour, much less find enough nourishment for them, however, he refused to let his very first recruits feel anything less than welcomed and protected under his care. 

The Unshackled was halted by a hand on his shoulder.

“Why don’t you go rest? You’re as pale as a specter.” 

The mage turned back to his companions with an expression of fatigued bewilderment on his unshaven face.

“Surely you all have to be hungry?” he questioned, indigo eyes searching their young faces for some sign that he was right. None of them looked like they ate nearly well enough, but all of them appeared to be in high spirits. Sylas turned to the remaining female mage, clearly exasperated by the previous suggestion. 

How could he rest when they had only just arrived?

Allowing his new recruits to go without eating would make him no better than the kingdom that had led them to their conjoined disenfranchisement. 

“It’s ok to rest Sylas. We’ll watch your back.” Mira persuaded, her voice gentle as she spoke to him.

Sylas’ eyebrows furrowed with internal conflict, thinking for several minutes before he finally responded.

“I guess a couple of hours wouldn’t hurt,” he admitted, expression ridden with guilt. In truth, the mage’s body was screaming at him to go lay down for far longer, but he needed to be absolutely sure that the three of them would be fine left to their own devices.

“That's an understatement, and you know it. Let us handle things for the day.” 

Someone was behind him, and they were struggling to push his enormous frame towards the furthest tent. 

“Gods, what are you made of? Bricks?!” a frustrated Julian grunted at him, peering around a tattooed shoulder to squint up at his leader. 

The sound of Sylas’laughter was both thunderous and jovial before three younger voices joined in with him.

“Alright, you’ve convinced me, but just for the morning. I’ll be back up around noon, then we can, uh--” he paused, unsure what they would do after he woke up. 

Sylas sighed before turning to ruffle the youngest boy’s hair with a fatherly hand, mussing it up far more than he had thought possible. For a split second, the teenager’s face softens, not used to the gesture.

“I’m trusting you to keep everyone safe. Think you can handle that for me?” he offered the youngest with a wry smile, an eyebrow raised to goad him. 

Julian grinned from ear to ear.

“Of course! I’m the strongest of all three of us!” 

With that having been said, Sylas nodded and began the slow trek away from his new recruits, golden chains dragging deep trenches in the grass behind him as he trudged. 

At the far end of the clearing, with no accompanying neighbors, stood Sylas’ cloth tent. Now that he really looked at it, the scene was a rather lonesome sight. 

Had he done that on purpose?

Sylas groaned to himself as he leaned through the tent’s small opening, allowing his body to collapse against the cold grass below once he knew he was out of sight. Usually, the mage would have tossed and turned for hours until feeling some semblance of comfort, but today was different. His eyelids felt as if they were made of lead, and before much time had passed, the mage couldn’t keep them open any longer. 

When Sylas had awoken, he could no longer see directly in front of himself. 

He had overslept.

Every muscle and joint felt as if they were filled with mortar, and his shoulders ached terribly. The total exhaustion of his body was compounded by his heavy collar; iron spikes that lined the inside of the device had dug into his neck while he slept. 

Sylas then stood up far too fast, and due to the small size of his tent, he knocked a cuff into the center supporting branch. The following several minutes could have only been described as pure embarrassment, culminating in the massive mage pulling himself from a collapsed pile of cloth in a huff.

“The next blueblood I see with a bigger damn tent is--”

“...you really...just broke your tent…standing up?”

He whipped around in horror.

“We were about to wake you up! There’s something we need your help with!” Luther explained to him, picking a blade of grass out of his sleep-tangled hair.

Before he could overthink the statement, Julian was making another attempt at moving him by force.

“Hurry up, Dregbourne! I wanna’ help too!” 

The thump of another shoulder punch came from behind Sylas’ weary shoulders.

“Don’t make me come back there.”

The two brothers laughed hard at that. 

“I think you’re going to enjoy this, Unshackled.” Luther promised, doubling his stride so that he kept up with him.

“Just...call me Sylas. There are no titles here. You’re a free man.”

Sylas wondered what it was like to have family members that cared for one another.

He hadn’t really experienced it. 

Many of his childhood friends from the slums of Dregbourne hadn’t known either.

When the trio neared the campfire, the missing member of the group was standing before the cookpot, stirring without a single glance over her shoulder.

“Mira gets super focused sometimes. She hears stuff we don’t. Ancient stuff.” Julian whispered to Sylas somewhere near his elbow. 

The smell of whatever they had put together was coaxing him forwards, spurring the mage’s curiosity about what it might be; the scent was unfamiliar. 

He loved it already.

“Luther...show him the thing.”

A hand pulled Sylas by a cuff before he could question what ‘the thing’ was. 

As he rounded the fire, the makeshift dining area came fully into view. A comfortable looking stump had been moved to the head of the table, and four cracked bowls sat in four distinct spots. Sylas balked in disbelief at the sight, wondering how they had managed to find such useful items so quickly. 

Is this all for-

“One home-cooked meal coming up! Just what the healer ordered!”

Sylas knew he needed to say something, but he could not form a sentence in his surprise. He could only stare in his bafflement.

“...Are you really gonna’ stand after I went and found a big enough seat for your ass?”

Sylas sat down on his new stump, looking disconnected, but pleased all the same.

The two brothers took their seats at the left side of the table, talking amongst themselves casually, as if this was something totally normal for them.

He wasn’t sure what to do or say.

Without a warning, something hot was poured into his own bowl, warming his tired face with a heavenly scented steam. The broth was dark and filled with wild mushrooms. Several fresh herbs swirled about the surface. Mirabelle poured the rest of the stew evenly between the remainder of them, pointing a finger at Julian when he tried to dig in. 

Sylas couldn’t stop staring at the meal.

“Come on, don’t be shy. You get the first bite!”

The aroma of rabbit wafted across the table and Sylas felt his mouth water. 

“Go on! It’s even got meat in it!”

Mira takes her seat on the left, gesturing for him to go ahead.

“...promise it's not poisoned.”

Sylas took the warm porcelain in his hands, unable to name all the emotions he felt. A wide-eyed, confused looking man stared back at him in the reflection. 

So that's what I look like now.

He brought the bowl to his chin slowly, avoiding all of the innocent eyes he felt on him. A rush of hot broth wetted his dry lips as he took his first sip. The flavors that met his palette caused Sylas to close his eyes in pure enjoyment.

Meat, herbs, and a few spices he didn’t recognize enraptured his taste buds. A warm smile crossed his lips, and before he could stop himself, he took another deep drink. 

They did this for…?

His eyes moistened as he tried to remember the last time someone had made him a meal. He couldn’t recall.

Sylas sat the bowl back down on the table shakily, raising a hand to cover half of his scruffy face. He felt so many different things all at once, and he couldn’t control the warmth that filled his chest.

It was the best thing he had ever eaten.

They did this for me.

Sylas stared down at the stew below, trying to handle the overwhelming emotions he felt.

A happy man peered up at him, though this time, he was restraining tears of joy.

“Pretty good, huh?”

Sylas simply nodded in response, wiping some of the moisture from his cheek with the back of his hand. The others seemed to have paid no mind to his moment of weakness, too busy enjoying their own meals and conversing about Luther’s successful rabbit trap.

He reached for the bowl once more, taking a slow sip as he watched the three youths smile and laugh with one another.

Sylas knew that his eyes still leaked tears, but he couldn’t go without thanking them for their gift.

“...This is truly wonderful. I can't thank you all enough...” 

Three content faces turned towards him, but he did not feel embarrassed. He felt happy.

“...It’s perfect.”

Three excited gasps escaped the teenagers around him, their faces beaming from his compliment.

“To Sylas! A free man!”

“Too many more meals to come!”

He smiled authentically at them all, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. With friends like these, Sylas of Dregbourne always had family nearby.

**Author's Note:**

> You are always worth enough to be loved.


End file.
